Akum

Not frog - hypno-toad. Actually, a hypno-toad or three in Canterbury would explain a lot.

Did she approve?

Saw Bobby Bright perform in Williamstown just a few years back - still a great entertainer, had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Top bloke too.

Not crying. Mate. Just defending a top quality young footballer against what must be the lowest accusation that can be made against a professional athlete in any contact sport. Especially when it's totally wrong. You think it means nothing? Perhaps you missed the fuss earlier in the year when Josh Fraser was accused of "dogging" a contest. That was just as idiotic. Of course Jack's not immune from criticism! You can say you don't think he's hard enough at the ball if that's your opinion. You can say you're concerned that the club has told him to keep himself out of trouble if that's what you think. But that's light years away from repeated wild accusations about "deliberately avoiding contests". None of his opponents accuse him of that. You don't expect it from so-called "supporters". Wouldn't be a problem at all except that dandeeman's posts are usually good on the whole IMO - if he was a nuffer I wouldn't bother. I just think he should know better and should accept responsibility for what he posted.

I'm readng things that aren't there?? At no stage have you bagged Jack Watts?? You need to take a look at your OP, dandeeman. I've bolded the bits where you've bagged Jack DIRECTLY for "a tendency to ... avoid the packs" and "not placing himself in contested situations". Then you talk about "a player who actively avoids contests" and "a player (who) hasn't got confidence in the players body to withstand a contest", but this is in a thread you started that you called "Jack Watts", where you don't mention any other player. OK, you've spent the rest of the thread backpedalling from these ridiculous and extremely offensive statements. You then come on all injured and hard done by when somebody calls you "idiot". What other word is there? And you have no idea what I'm talking about? Let me try again - slowly. The club and Jack want him to put himself in pressure situations, to see if his game holds up, to see whether his vision and decision-making and disposal, attributes that stamp him as elite and for which they recruited him, stand up under pressure. So far, despite him being underdone and underdeveloped, it looks good. Just because he's not crashing packs and taking pack marks doesn't mean that he's avoiding contests. Let me repeat - the most offensive thing you can say about any player is that he actively avoids contests. You've said this directly about Jack twice, and indirectly another twice. Then when challenged to back it up you repeat it and emphasise it by calling it "indisputable" in a later post. Then other clowns are encouraged by this garbage to come out of the woodwork and say it's true. How can this be construed as anything other than a post that is very offensive towards Jack? If Jack happened to read this, what other possible conclusion could he draw from it? Other than that you have no idea what you're talking about. You expect to cop this trash from outside the club, but not from those who call themselves "supporters". You've been backpedalling from the offensive parts of your OP the whole thread since. Perhaps you were trying to have a go at the club for what you consider to be their instructions. So if you didn't mean it to come across as offensively as it actually reads, have the guts to take responsibility for the words you posted, say you didn't mean it that way and TAKE IT BACK. Don't think you can counter the offensiveness by inane statements such as "Jack Watts seems like a great kid with a good head on his shoulders and immense ability" (who you happen to think avoids contests).

What he said. Not sure what you're expecting dandeeman. Jack is an underdeveloped underdone 18 year old, not Jonathon Brown 2009 version. His tasks this year are to pick up the pace, find plenty of ball under pressure, do something positive with it under pressure, find space, keep his feet. To suggest he's not putting himself into pressure situations - or, even worse, deliberately avoiding putting himself into pressure situations (whether that's a club instruction or not) is ridiculous. Sorry, there's no other word for it. If you bag him because he doesn't crash packs, take pack marks, play like an in-and-under mid, fly for speccies against teammates, then you deserve all the criticism you get. To do the first two, the minimum requirement would be a preseason or two and more muscle & bulk. He's not in any team to do the third, and it would always be wrong, stupid, selfish to do the fourth. If you deliberately overstate your OP to make it controversial, you should expect to cop some carp for it. And your problem is that you've accused Jack of the worst thing that can be said about any footballer - that he avoids contests ("indisputably"). We don't mind Jack being criticised, but it's not unfair to expect it to be for something that approximates the truth (and can be backed up with more than the fact that you consider what you say to be Holy Writ), and is preferably constructive. You fail dismally on both counts.